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10:00 PM HOUR:

Anderson, Christian Amanpour, Jeffrey Toobin, Andrew Sullivan and Amy Holmes did a round table discussion of the events of the day. Topics were the Boston bombing, Syria and gay athletes. Others who participated were Jake Tapper and Dana Bash remotely and Sen. John McCain by phone.

Blogger's Commentary: If you missed this 10 PM hour make sure to tune it the rest of the week. It was excellent television, smart and informative. We thoroughly enjoyed it and hope it can become a regular on the CNN schedule.

8 comments:

Mixed feelings about Jason Collins being the lead story. While Collins' coming out may be earth-shattering news to some people, my response was "so what?" A pro basketball player is gay, is that such a big deal? OTOH, I liked the discussion with Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley and the comparisons to Jackie Robinson.

The segment on the Boston bombing was also very good. Joe Johns said the FBI isn't revealing much about the female DNA they found on one of the pressure cooker bombs. It's curious they said DNA and not fingerprints. DNA makes me think of blood or body tissue. Is it possible that DNA belongs to a victim and the DNA got on the bomb due to blowback? Also curious about Tamarlan's body still at the morgue. With the parents allegedly still in Russia, isn't it up to the widow to arrange a funeral?

Misha might still be a Maguffin, IMO. The guy in Rhode Island has been questioned but not charged. All of the evidence against "Misha" comes from the Tsarnaev family perhaps in an attempt to blur who instigated the bombing.

I was glad the Ridiculist was back but didn't need to see the toad that was in the green beans can.

@ATA Team - thanks for the info on the 10 PM hour. Will it be a discussion roundtable for the whole week? I happened to catch a little of the "The Point" roundtable CNN had in the time slot several weeks ago. They were having a talk about the segregated proms in GA and it had some good points. If the 10 PM show will always have Anderson that's a pretty good reason to check it out.

Here's hoping they stay with the new 10 pm format for a while. This is the show "The Point" tried but failed miserably to be. What I loved most about the format was the ability for the panelists to just lay everything out there, if someone didn't like what was being said, there was no holding back and off they went. I especially enjoyed Jeff Toobin and Andrew Sullivan--Sullivan in particular pushed back hard against McCain and Amanpour's positions on Syria and it's kind of rare to see someone actually challenging McCain the way he did--some might think Sully was rude, but thoroughly enjoyed seeing him questioning the senator and recounting his history with the Iraq war. For once I wasn't annoyed that McCain was on the program because he got served in addition to getting his own points across. Anderson and Sully's debate/discussion on the newly out NBA player was fascinating to watch--they clearly had different perspectives when it came to the derogatory way "gay" is sometimes used by individuals and in movies. I found most of the show riveting. Who knows what's going to happen or what the reaction/ratings will be but I want more!

It actually is a big deal that an NBA player came out and that he happens to be African-American--it's a major step forward and a sign of progress and hope for other young men who may be in the same situation but wary of coming out. I hope someday we get to the point where it REALLY doesn't matter and homophobia no longer exists, but we're not there yet and for that to happen, more people will have to come out and that's a good thing.

I really liked the second hour. If Anderson stays at CNN, I hope this is the new format and that he can keep Jeff Toobin and Christiane Amanpour as permanent panelists or other legal and international "experts" (for lack of a better word) of equal intelligence and maturity when it comes to panel discussion. Not sure why Amy Holmes was on the panel,but if they are going to give a Republican a voice, then a Democrat should be added to the panel as well. The "special" guest panelist changing or rotating is fine, but with Andrew Sullivan being a Republican (although a moderate one) - there were two Republican voices and no Democrat.

I would also lose Tapper, Bash and McCain. I would replace the "live" guests/correspondents with either a video clip from an earlier report or better yet a very mini "report" from Anderson on the topic - to get the topic information out there and the discussion started.

CNN/AC360 has become very unbalanced in their guest/expert bookings lately. After 10 days of the Boston bombing reporting - I can't think of one Democrat that was a guest or expert - it was all Republicans voicing their displeasure with how the "suspect" was treated with regard to his rights and ex-Bush Administration officials discussing the FBI, CIA, Homeland security, etc. While what happened in Boston was horrible, it certainly wasn't 9/11 and apparently some aren't familiar with our Constitutional rights?

I certainly didn't need to see McCain in the 10pm hour to grandstand his opinion on Syria. AC360 has been there and done that for months and Sen. McCain gets more than his share of TV time. Perhaps someone else has an opinion?

Again, I think with a little tweaking the 10pm hour could be the best/most intelligent hour on all of CNN.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I missed the 10 PM hour! Sounds like it was really good. I was too tired and went to bed, thinking it was just a second hour with a bit more twitter input. Will they do this all week long or is there a chance to see some clips? :)

I am really glad they are testing a round table show that involves Anderson. He's an excellent moderator, in the truest sense of the word and always manages to keep discussions on track and respectful. I usually can't stand any of those shows with exception of Real Time but this sounds really promising as long as they keep Anderson on the panel or always have someone on who can maintain this tone.

As for the 8 PM hour, loved the two coming out stories and especially the charming (from both sides) interview with Robbie Rogers. @Jaanza: I think it is kind of a big deal that Jason Collins came out. It shouldn't be, but since it is a first within a sport that can be rather homophobic and also a black man (I'm always worried about being un-pc. When I lived in England saying "black" was rude and everyone said "coloured". o_O) with the African American community sometimes a bit on the homophobic side I think it is big. And might also be a great inspiration for other athlets to come out. I think it is very brave of him. :) The discussion was really interesting.

I forgot to mention I would absolutely love to see the segment of the 10 PM hour where they discussed the coming out, the use of the term "gay" etc. You don't get to see Anderson expressing his personal opinion on more serious topics that often.

Anyway, really looking forward to more episodes. I hope they will maintain the quality they apparently delivered and that it will be a success. :)

The lack of an actual, identifiable Democrat on the Special Edition 360 also bothered me--I was so impressed with the change that I didn't think about it until a little later in the evening--I'm glad Wonz expressed her concern with that aspect of the program. Were we to assume that Jeff Toobin and Amanpour were representatives for the left, because CNN has certainly never identified them as such. I have noticed for a very long time that 360 rarely features Democratic politicians on the show unlike many news programs and they seem to go out of their way to avoid discussing President Obama unless it's some kind of critique of him. Last night on 360, there was conservative Peter King but no liberal to counter him, which has become standard operating procedure on 360 these days. Do they even bother to try to find a liberal voice? I find it difficult to believe that not one Democratic politician will appear on the show. I don't want to think 360/CNN is deliberately keeping Democrats off the show ("The Point" had the same issue), but it's been going on so long, I'm not sure anymore. Anderson's utter devotion to McCain is baffling--he should take the blinders off and look at his recent decisions regarding veterans amongst other not so admirable actions.

Hm, the lack of a declared democrat didn't really occure to me because everyone apart from the republican and actually the majority of reporters/pundits on CNN seems to be liberal/democrats/moderates/progressives anyway. Actually I always get this "lone republican/conservative in the lions den" feeling when I see one of them appearing in a CNN show so inofficially I think a single republican on the panel is already vastly outnumbered. XD

It's a bit of a tricky situation. In reality everyone kind of knows that most people on this panel are liberals, probably democrats. But those people are no politicians and are not going to "come out" because they are supposed to be neutral as news ancors/pundits. So bringing more official democrats in would create an official balance but and inofficial unbalance.